The cry roused Ani from hot, restive slumber.
She nipped up like a jack in the box. Heart racing, she stared into the darkness. Earth magic sharpened her hearing, her vision. Yet no matter how far she extended, the only sounds were the ordinary noises of the night.
She'd been dreaming. Good or bad? Fairies only had bad dreams if their psyche was imbalanced. The type of imbalance that could cause a woman to experience graphic, sexual dreams about the Primary of the Elder Court. That could cause panic attacks and instinctive agony spells.
What a mess. Ani collapsed onto the pillows and scrubbed her face. She had to regain control. Erotic nighttime fantasies like the one she'd been enjoying weren't bad exactly. What made hers bad was that she'd been interrupted before the grand conclusion.
It had been so close to grand. His skin. His hands. His tongue. Whether or not it was a nightmare, it felt bad now. Her puss ached with frustration, but she had no urge to rub it. All the lust had been shocked out of her by the sudden fright.
Imbalanced indeed. Without Talista by her side, she'd grown too feeble to handle Court. She'd limped along for five years, but evidently she'd reached her limit.
She suspected her limit had something to do with Warran Torval. Or was it her mortifying desire to offer Elder Embor a proposition card-or proposition him outright?
While cowardice explained the first issue, lack of balance was the only explanation for the second. She'd lost her center and her sense. While Embor's threat to report her had likely been a bluff, it didn't erase the fact she'd throttled him-and soon thereafter tried to kiss him.
No, she'd not be offering Embor a proposition card.
Ani rolled in the tangled sheets until her cheek hit a cool spot on the opposite pillow. There was no place at Court for a half-twin with violent panic attacks and a yen for the Primary. What was she going to do? Ani pondered her options until a bar of orange sunrise splashed her face, waking her from the sleep she thought she'd never find.
The light was so concentrated it pierced her eyelids. She flopped away from it, or tried to. Something large weighed down the coverlet, pinning her to the bed.
Ani yanked at the covers. Her sister hadn't sheet-wedged her in decades, but the sensation of being stuck by tightly wrapped blankets was a familiar one.
"Talista, not funny."
A hoarse rumble answered her right before a multitude of needles pierced her thigh.
Ani screeched and kicked. The weight disappeared. A distinct thump sounded on the floor to her right.
Adrenaline blasted her system as her eyesight adjusted to the half-dark. She scrambled off the bed, groping for the alarm globe on the side table.
"Who's there?"
She could see no one in her bedchamber, and she didn't sense Tali through their sibling bond.
Cautiously she crept around the footboard, gripping her alarm globe. The fist-sized charms could wake one person or a castle depending on how one used them.
When she reached the corner, a black cat waited in the center of her damp rug with its tail tucked over its paws.
She looked at the cat. The cat looked at her. Its yellow eyes gleamed. Then it hiked its back leg into the air and began to wash itself.
Oh. Well. Himself.
"Hello, Fey." Anisette glanced at her door and windows. Undisturbed, keyed to locks she controlled. She chose who could enter. The only other way in was via transportation.
"What are you doing here, Master Fey?"
The cat, in the way of cats, didn't acknowledge her. He started on his tail.
Some Fey cats communicated with fairies. Some didn't. They appeared and disappeared all over the Realm, cities to deserts. They also traveled to humanspace, possibly through things Tali called gnome holes and possibly by means of their own devising.
Fairies were the dominant primates on the Realm continent, the only civilized land in their world. Fairies outnumbered leprechauns, annishags, yeti, medusas and other sentient species, with the sentience of gnomes an item of some debate.
Cats were not primates.
Jody W.
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